It was an honor to help FICCI FRAMES 2015 co-curate their first track on entrepreneurship in association with Media Entertainment Network by TiE (MENT) – the special interest group I co-founded at TiEMumbai. Thanks to my colleagues Jehil Thakkar and Nandini Mansinghka, we were able to set up a couple of panels around founders and funders in the Media & Entertainment space.

I particularly enjoyed moderating the panel titled ‘Desi Media Disruption: Founders building Media companies’, where I had the privilege to share the dias with some entrepreneurs responsible for disruption in the new media space –Parikshit Dar (BookMyShow), Samir Bangara (Qyuki) , Ramki Sankaranaraynan (Prime Focus Technologies) and Anshulika Dubey (Wishberry). Just like a true entrepreneur, I opened the panel by asking the audience what they wanted to takeaway in the next 60 min (customer insight) and then steered the questions.  The interaction that followed was insightful and I’m putting this post to share a few key learnings that I noted or got reinforced …

• Don’t play the small blind, when you’re starting up- go all in. Ensure that the stakes are so high that you can’t afford to give up or not perform. Having a consulting revenue on the side will always keep you away from giving it your best shot and unlocking your dream.
• It’s important to know what the market needs. You may not crack that on the first go. However, you need to stick around with conviction, perseverance and flexibility to adopt and adapt to what the market needs.
• It’s a lonely journey. It’s a difficult journey. Plan the plunge, the hard times will always extend from what you’ve planned.
• Investors pick you for the team, the market and then the product. When talking to them show them the opportunity in the market and build the confidence needed from the founding team. If you start with a deck or a spreadsheet- you are more likely to get stuck in justifying Ifs and Buts.
• The funding climate is unreal now. Raise capital now!
  ~ Rasie capital when you know you are ready to scale/grow. You can get funded on a phone call today- get funds to scale a business not a bubble- it will bite you back some day.
• Understand your project type: Passion v/s Craft v/s Business
  Correspondingly, the investor type: Funders v/s Patron v/s Professional investor
• “Don’t worry if you’re late, always be the latest!”

Let me know, which one is your favorite takeaway?